


Just Stay a Little

by doodledinmypants



Series: Pink Lars is Best Lars [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Blink and you'll miss the background ship of Topaz/Zircon, Cuddling & Snuggling, Don't Judge Me, Except I guess I do?, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I don't even ship this, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Platonic Cuddling, Plus the Off Color fusion ships but that seemed redundant, Rating May Change, Spoilers for Episode: s05e01-04 Wanted, Spoilers for Episode: s05e04 Lars' Head, and it's this ship, so long and thanks for all the feels, teen rating for mild swearing, this tag needs more love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 19:44:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11168802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodledinmypants/pseuds/doodledinmypants
Summary: “Hey, Steven,” said Lars, just before bending a knee to give Steven easier access to his magic hair, “would you… can you just tell Sadie I’m… No. Never mind. I’ll tell her myself.”“When you get back on Earth,” Steven agreed helpfully. He said it like a fact, rather than simply encouragement. Lars envied his optimism. “Okay, see you, Lars. I’ll be back before you know it.”But he wasn’t....Post-Wanted and Lars' Head. The cuddlefic you know you needed (even if you don't want to admit it out loud).





	Just Stay a Little

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta’d, will update with edits if needed, just had to get this out there as soon as I finished it. More notes at the end.

 

“Hey, Steven,” said Lars, just before bending a knee to give Steven easier access to his magic hair, “would you… can you just tell Sadie I’m… No. Never mind. I’ll tell her myself.”

“When you get back on Earth,” Steven agreed helpfully. He said it like a fact, rather than simply encouragement. Lars envied his optimism. “Okay, see you, Lars. I’ll be back before you know it.”

But he wasn’t.

He wasn’t for weeks.

Months.

Lars stopped keeping track of days. The cycle of light-dark didn’t seem to make any sort of chronological sense, by his reckoning, and soon he realized it was because Homeworld was lit by three suns, all on their own schedules. Lars gave up trying to time each one, as his cell phone wasn’t even any good as a clock anymore. Biological indicators of passage of time like hunger, exhaustion, and even… toilet functions were no longer reliable witnesses.

The Off-Colors relied on Lars, and he on them, for their mutual survival. He’d eaten the last sandwich Steven had given him a day or two after the boy had left, so it wouldn’t go stale, but in the following expanse of time he had not felt a single tummy rumble. So, starving to death wasn’t going to be an imminent problem, apparently. It was the same for water, though Lars had been carefully rationing his, taking a couple sips per day just to keep his throat wet. He’d finished the last sip roughly a week ago. He felt fine, definitely not like he was severely dehydrated, as he should have been by now. Hell, by now he should have been…

Well. He wasn’t. That was the whole problem, wasn’t it? He was not-dead, and he was pink, and his hair was a magic portal, and he was stuck here on this weird stupid rock with no human company or even Netflix and he was so, so tired of running and hiding. Just when he was ready to stop running and hiding from everything else in his life.

He had all the time in the world to play over his last moments seeing Sadie. The disappointment on her face when he started to back away from Topaz. The way she called his name as he ran. The realization that not only had he not saved her, he’d failed to save even himself. Coward. Failure. It wasn’t like it was unfamiliar. He’d seen that disappointed look, heard that inflection of his name, more times than he cared to number. Sadie. His parents. His teachers. A parade of recollections marched through his brain any time he was still enough to think. Reminding him of every time he’d let everyone down because he wouldn’t even try. Every time he made an ass of himself by trying too hard.

He was a new Lars now, he knew, and that transformation had started before he’d turned pink. It took being kidnapped and stranded on a hostile planet on the far side of the universe to bring about this change. The infuriating thing about it was he couldn’t go home and deal with any of it or prove to anyone that he was a better Lars now. All he could do was let his memories torment him, letting him imagine all the scenarios where he should have said this, done that.

His new friends were supportive and tried to listen, but he gathered that they didn’t have the context for his human emotional issues. They definitely had feelings and could empathize on some level, but they truly were alien and often just stared with wordless, puzzled sympathy when he attempted to relate his problems to them. They cared, but they had no idea how to counsel or comfort him. Still, the fact that they even tried made him feel better, less alone. He wasn’t sure how he would have managed if they had left him truly on his own here. They’d had the opportunity. Like Steven, they were the only people (and he’d long decided that Gems counted as “people” despite their alien-ness) who hadn’t given up on him yet.

As the passage of time lost all meaning, Lars settled into framing his life as an endless cycle of run, fight, hide, marinate in his own shame-memories, repeat. Fluorite turned out to be the leader-slash-parental figure towards the other gems plus Lars, which made a certain amount of sense. She had six brains to pick for experience and wisdom. Lars fondly thought of her as Grandma Caterpillar, and she even reminded her of his grandmother in a funny, slantwise sort of way (his _nanang_ was definitely not the length of a semi truck or rainbow colored, for instance.) Rhodonite's anxiety was as much a useful survival mechanism as it was an annoyance, for she was usually right. It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you, Lars thought. Padparadsha’s delayed predictions were never not charming, somehow, and Lars had really grown to feel protective of the tiny gem. Carrying on a conversation with her was an exercise in patience, but she was surprisingly astute about things that didn’t require good timing. The Rutile twins were the main scouts and lookouts for their little band of merry outcasts. Lars wound up discussing strategies with Rutile for keeping the others safe, often whispering long into what constituted as ‘night’ on Homeworld while the others rested. None of them needed sleep, per se, but emotional and mental exhaustion were still a thing for gems, and they needed to just stare quietly into space for a little while between running and fighting robonoids. Even Lars found himself falling into this blank, meditative state in lieu of sleeping and he began to wonder if he even counted as human anymore. Maybe he was a weird gem, despite, you know, his actual lack of a gem. This was just his life now. At least he was in good company.

During one of these resting periods, Lars felt a faint tingling in his scalp. His mind was sluggish to register the feeling, having sunk into what counted for sleep for him, but then he heard Padparadsha exclaim a moment later: “Oh! Steven is waving at us from Lars’ head!”

Lars immediately folded at the waist and crouched, just in time to allow Steven to tumble out of his head with far more grace than the first few times they’d tried this. Lars stared at Steven as the younger boy caught his breath, and then he had his own breath knocked out of him as Steven tackled him in a hug.

“Laaaarrrrrs!” Steven cried, and was immediately shushed by the Off Colors. Steven gave a chagrined shrug of his shoulders and whisper-yelled, “Lars!” much more quietly. “I’m so sorry! Lion went missing, and then the Diamonds—”

He stopped suddenly as he realized that Lars had actual tears in his eyes. “Oh, Lars!”

“You idiot,” Lars sniffled. “Do you know how long it’s been?”

“Uh,” said Steven guiltily.

“Because I _literally don’t!_ ” Lars stage-whisper-shrieked, shaking Steven a little. “There’s no day or night here! No phone! I don’t even know when I last took a piss!”

Steven’s expression turned somehow even more guilty, then concerned, then horrified. “Lars, you must have been so worried! I’m so, so, SO sorry! It’s okay! I’m okay! Everything’s fine! Well…”

“I’ve been stuck here for _how_ long and everything’s _fine_?” Lars demanded.

Steven sighed. “I know, I was worried, too. But you’re still here! You’re all okay! Hi, guys!”

The Off Colors, now gathered around them, waved back cheerfully if a bit tiredly.

Padparadsha said, “Oh! Lars will be so upset with Steven!”

Lars huffed. “I mean, yeah, we’re okay I guess, but maybe we wouldn’t have been. I don’t know how long I can keep being this awesome.”

He could almost see the stars in Steven’s eyes. “Forever,” Steven whispered, totally serious. Lars knew he hadn’t meant it to sound so ominous, but Lars shivered anyway.

“Shut up,” he muttered to mask his discomfort. He settled onto the ground, Steven automatically sitting beside him. “Tell me what’s been happening.”

Steven filled him in on the events of the past seven (seven?!) months in typical Steven fashion, listing off battles and supernatural bizarreness as though it were simply a time line on a television show, with highlights like, “Oh, and then I made the entire Empire City conservatory into a sort of giant plant mecha,” and, “I’m glad we have Topaz and Zircon on our side now, but they really need to just fuse and get it over with. I mean, really, everyone knows they want to.”

Lars and the Off Colors listened raptly to the news, nodding along at key points, and slowly breaking into grins and exchanged, excited glances as Steven brought them the best news of all: they had a ship.

“It’s not big enough for everyone,” Steven warned. “It’s really more of an escape pod than anything, but Peridot really souped up the engine so it won’t take long to get here. Pearl is piloting it right now.”

He outlined the plan: the ship would arrive, tracking onto Steven’s gem once it approached Homeworld at a closer range. Once Pearl landed, she’d go back to Earth with the Off Colors via Lars’ hair portal, Steven leading them through two at a time, like Lars’ head was the Ark or something. Then, Lars would take the pre-programmed shuttle back to Earth. With any luck, and Peridot’s cloaking system, Lars would be home in a week. It wasn’t going to be as fast a trip as Aquamarine’s ship had taken, as the pod would be making shorter jumps through warped space to confound any would-be pursuers, but it would be relatively safe. And Lars would be home.

Home. For as often as Lars had thought about all the missteps of his past, he’d given surprisingly little thought to the future. Maybe he’d convinced himself there wouldn’t be one.

It was impossible to stay so nihilistic with Steven there, warm and real and smiling up at him, pressed unselfconsciously against Lars’ hip and side. The sensation of another human body touching his was like dropping a very sudden, shocking anchor from a speedboat. Lars had almost forgotten how different it felt. The gems were free with their physical affection, touching Lars on the shoulder to comfort him or spinning him into triumphant hugs after winning a battle with the robonoids, but they weren’t human. Their bodies were basically condensed light. They felt strange; harder, colder, less solid somehow. They had no pulse or breath to mark them as alive, which still occasionally read as unnervingly inhuman to Lars despite his own slowed bodily functions. Steven’s arm touched Lars’ from elbow to shoulder as they leaned into each other slightly, both taking solace in the simple contact.

Steven didn’t stay as long as Lars would have liked. He promised to come back sooner and more frequently to keep them updated on the plan so they’d be ready to move when necessary. He promised more provisions, too, and presented Lars with a small backpack stuffed with several sandwiches, a bag from Big Donut, two bottles of water, and finally a magazine that Steven had swiped from Lars’ bedroom. “Y’know, in case you get bored,” Steven mumbled, not meeting Lars’ mortified glare. “Look I’m fourteen, my dad’s given me the Talk, let’s just not mention this again, okay?”

Lars had rolled up the magazine and stuffed it in the bottom of the backpack, face burning, when the Off Colors had interrogated him about the purpose of the magazine. “I predict that Lars will become more red in hue!” Padparadsha announced to Steven’s not-really-sorry-at-all giggles.

With more hugs and repeated assurances that he’d be back again soon— “Every day, since they need me here at least some of the time to track me!”— Steven climbed back through the portal in Lars’ hair and was gone. Aside from the backpack he’d left behind and the afterthought of warmth along Lars’ arm, Lars might have thought he’d hallucinated the whole scene.

A sweep of red light and menacing whirs interrupted any chance of sorting through his feelings about Steven’s visit or his imminent rescue. They had to run again.

  
. . .

Pearl stepped out of the tiny spacecraft and unfolded herself. It was a good thing gems didn’t get muscle cramps or atrophy. She dusted herself off out of habit and looked around at the abandoned kindergarten. It was overwhelming to see one again after so many eons. Far more vast than the comparatively primitive ones on Earth. The air pressure and gravitational pull here were different, and Pearl’s projected body adjusting accordingly to maintain proportion. Other than that, however, she found little familiarity in that place. Homeworld was as alien to her now as Earth had been back then.

From the holes in the sheer rock walls, figures emerged slowly, cautiously. Lars recognized Pearl and ran to her, stopping just short of grabbing her into a hug when he saw her visibly lean away from him. “You must be Lars,” she said, trying to smooth things over by offering a handshake, which he accepted with a sort of distracted bemusement. “Well, it wasn’t easy, but I’ve made it! Where’s Steven? I couldn’t detect him with my final scan so I had to go off the last coordinates. Thank goodness you’re all still here!”

“He hasn’t shown up yet today,” Lars said. “But he should be here any—”

Right on cue, Steven emerged from Lars’ head with a gasp for air. Lars staggered and dropped quickly to a squatting position so Steven didn’t have far to fall.

“A Pearl will arrive! We are saved!” cheered Paparadsha. Then, “Oh, and Steven will return as well!”

“Good timing, Steven,” said Pearl. “I’ll fill Lars in on the ship controls while you escort these gems through to Earth.”

There wasn’t time for introductions. Lars obediently kept his head bowed as Steven crammed himself and the Off Colors through the hair portal. Paparadsha, as the smallest, and Rutile were first. Then came Rhodonite, and Pearl blushed an almost neon shade of mint as she realized that Rhodonite was a Pearl fused with a Ruby. She had an even stronger reaction to Flourite, who hummed and peered at Lars’ head before finally unfusing and traveling through in three pairs of gems that Steven and Lars didn’t have names for yet. Meanwhile, despite her distraction, Pearl explained the workings of the pod to Lars and Lars tried to listen carefully and not focus on how he was being used as a literal human doormat.

Then Steven came back for Pearl. “It’ll be a week,” he reminded Lars, “but I’ll check on you so you don’t get lonely!”

Lars eyed the inside of the re-purposed ship with grave doubt. “Uh, sure, but it’ll be pretty cozy. There’s like, no leg room in here.”

“It’ll be fun,” insisted Steven. “I’ll bring cards.”

And then Steven and Pearl were gone, too, and Lars was truly alone.

He took a deep breath of thin, metallic air and climbed into the ship. Pushing the touchpad to close the hatch, he settled into the narrow seat and placed his hand on the main console to activate the autopilot. With a lurch that sent his stomach down to his toes, the tiny pod shot up out of its shallow crater and into space.

The escape, surprisingly, went exactly as planned. No diamonds swatting him out of the sky, no warships in pursuit, not even a stray meteor to the… well, windshield wasn’t the right word, probably, but that’s what Lars was calling it. The pod was claustrophobically small. Lars grumbled to himself as he wriggled into various cramped positions, but for all his complaining he wasn’t actually feeling that much physical discomfort. It was the boredom and yeah, Steven had it right, loneliness that were going to kill him before he made it home. Steven had thoughtfully brought him snacks and more magazines (some gaming ones, this time) to help him pass the time, but Lars wasn’t really that hungry and he read all of the magazines from cover to cover within two days because he didn’t need to sleep.

Steven’s knock on the ceiling of the pod alerted Lars to his presence. He obligingly tipped his head forward so Steven had room to climb out into the limited space. Naturally, there was no place for Steven to sit but on Lars’ lap, so that wasn’t awkward at all.

“Look, I know we’re close now and everything but this is a little too close,” Lars said.

Steven just laughed and wrapped his arms around Lars’ skinny torso. “I dunno, it’s kind of nice, having an excuse to hug you a lot.”

Lars knew he was more crimson than pink, because Steven’s grin took on an extra gloating edge. “Come on, Lars, admit it! It’s okay to enjoy snuggle time.”

“You’re such a weirdo,” muttered Lars, but it wasnt uncomfortable, and he really didn’t mind that much. At least Steven was someone to talk to. True to his word, he even brought a deck of cards. The human contact thing was admittedly welcome, and Lars found himself looking forward to Steven’s daily check-ins. He didn’t stay very long each time, because his time was split between helping the Crystal Gems fight off the Homeworld forces, and helping the Off Colors acclimate to their new home. Steven made sure to relay messages from Fluorite and the others. Lars was startled at how much he missed them, too.

By the fifth day, it was starting to feel like a routine. Lars tried to imagine this being his life for the next seven months, and being surprised to realize that he wouldn’t mind it that much, so long as Steven kept visiting. The snuggles were addictive. Lars hadn’t realized how starved he was for contact until Steven had returned. Some part of him still felt ashamed and silly for that, but Steven’s complete lack of judgment and effortless affection softened something in him. How had he never realized how sweet Steven was? How much he liked that about the other boy? How much he needed something like this in his life?

His thoughts turned guiltily to Sadie. His feelings surrounding her were so tangled and thorny, he needed a machete. What little physical affection he’d had with her was always fleeting and fraught and never enough but more than he deserved. Their relationship was… problematic at best, and Lars knew he was responsible for most of that. He still didn’t know what to say to her when he got back. How could he even face her, after all he’d done?

With Steven, though, he focused on being in the moment, quietly hiding how much he enjoyed the gentle closeness of their time together. Sometimes they didn’t even talk, just sitting there with their arms loosely wrapped around each other, Lars resting his chin on top of Steven’s head. It was like the gem’s meditative version of sleep all over again, but just… nicer. Yet always too brief.

The sixth day, Lars was starting to feel actual jitters about returning home. How would his parents react? Would they care about his new color palette and accompanying magic powers? Would they care that he was basically some kind of zombie? What would the cool kids think of his new look? Oh no, what would the cool kids think of him for ditching on potluck night? What was he going to say to Sadie? Would Sadie even want to see him?

“Lars, they all miss you so much,” Steven assured him, placing a hand against Lars’ chest. The slower but still steady rhythm of Lars’ heartbeat thrummed against his palm. “We didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up too soon, but they know you’re coming back now and they’re all so happy and worried.”

“What if they don’t like me? The new me?” Lars asked desperately. “I mean, besides the pink.”

“Lars, they love you,” insisted Steven.

“But will they _like_ me?” He took a deep, shaky breath. “Did any of them ever like me?”

Steven’s honest smile made him feel laid open and bare in a way he hadn’t since he’d asked Sadie on that island if she ever felt lonely. “I always have.”

And even though Lars knew that Steven liked everybody, it was enough to open the floodgates and he cried the way he hadn’t let himself for the past seven months. He cried because he had been a coward, he cried because he’d been a complete fuck-up pretty much since birth, and he cried because he’d died and Steven had brought him back to life with his magic tears because he loved him so much and Steven even liked him despite Lars’ best efforts to the contrary.

Steven just hugged him fiercely and weathered the storm of tears, saying things like, “It’s okay, Lars. It’ll all be okay. I got you. We all got you.”

He sang, and the lyrics and the melody wove themselves around Lars like Steven’s arms, calming him.

_“Here comes a thought…”_

Lars found himself relaxing by the last repetitions of “ _I’m here, I’m here_ ,” and rested his forehead against Steven’s.

“Thanks, buddy,” he sighed. “That… really helped.”

Steven gently held Lars’ face between his hands, and Lars half-expected a kiss, though he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. He blushed and held very still. Instead, Steven leaned in slightly and booped his nose against Lars’, even voicing the “ _boop_!" as he did so. It startled a watery laugh out of Lars.

“I should go,” said Steven, reluctance evident in the way he koala’d himself around Lars’ waist again. “It’s getting late, and the gems—”

“Just,” Lars said. He swallowed. Then he kissed the top of Steven’s head and curled around his friend more tightly. “Just stay a little.”

Steven’s eyes shimmered, and he nodded mutely, cuddling into Lars’ chest and listening to the soft, steady pulse of his heart.

. . .

End (?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I think you can read this as mostly platonic Lars + Steven or fluffy Steven/Lars, depending on your preference. I don’t even know for sure that I ship this myself but I super FRIENDship it for sure. Also I have to give a shout out to all the other post-”Wanted” fic authors who explored some of these ideas before I ever got my paws on them, and probably did a better job of it, too. Thank you for inspiring me to write this and adding to my mountain of unexpected Lars + Steven feels!
> 
> I’m considering writing another part to this and/or writing a far future (50+ years) Steven/Lars fic that deals with some topics I couldn’t include in this fic, like: the ramifications of Lars’ apparent immortality, speculation about how Beach City and Earth will have changed after the Final Gem War, what happens to our favorite characters after all those years, character deaths, Lars as a trans character (I didn’t really mention it in this story, but I’m trans and I headcanon Lars as a transguy), and what a Steven/Lars fusion (STARS!) might be like. Kudos and comments will help me decide what to do next, whether I should keep writing about this ship, and what I should include, so don’t be shy!


End file.
